Sports are games, but it would be foolish to think that the effect of participating in sports is limited to the playing courts. When I see people playing sports I don’t just see people having fun and enjoying their pastime. I see people proactively improving their physical and emotional health. I see people building up resistances against problems such as diabetes and heart disease that could potentially bring them harm them in the future. I see people learning and honing skills that can help them in their personal lives and in their careers. I see people going through the cycles of success and failure, and building their capacity to be diligent and ability to exert more effort by setting their minds on improving themselves. Sports are just games. Games that can bring a lot of value into our lives.
Much in this article series directly applies to men, particularly the health benefits. But boys and men already participate in sports at much higher rates than women, and are less likely to need encouragement to be physically active. I’ve lost women in my life to diabetes and heart disease. Something that these women had in common was that they lived very sedentary lives, they were often physically inactive, with little or no exercise. I hate to lose any more people too soon, when there are active steps available that we know will improve the overall health of our communities.
I believe that encouraging girls and women to play sports more often and supporting them at all levels, as children, as students, adults as amateurs, and professionally, is an important step that we should take. The Philippines is currently on progress to become one of the top 10 countries for number of cases of diabetes. I believe this growing health problem can be partially curbed by one simple step. Encouraging everyone to play more sports.
This is part 6 of a 6 part articles series. You can view the rest of the series “Making the Case for Women’s Sports” here:
Part 1: The value of girls and women playing sports
Part 2: Being a fan of women’s sports
Part 3: Financing women’s sports
Part 4: Media coverage of women’s sports
Part 5: Women’s sports in the Philippines
Part 6: Personal note “It’s just a game”
Further Reading
For further reading on the topic, I highly recommend the following articles and reports, many of which I used as sources in this article series.
Diabetes and obesity in the Philippines
http://www.idf.org/BRIDGES/map/philippines?language=en
World Health Organization report on diabetes in the Philippines
http://www.who.int/diabetes/country-profiles/phl_en.pdf
United Nations report on women’s sports
http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/public/Women%20and%20Sport.pdf
Report on financing women’s sports
https://www.womeninsport.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Prime-Time.pdf
Sponsorship and media coverage
https://www.womeninsport.org/how-were-doing-it/sponsorship-media/
Differences between men’s and women’s sports media coverage
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/06/women-and-sports-world-cup-soccer/395231/
The different views on sexualization of women athletes
http://pages.ucsd.edu/~akleske/W110/wade/index.html
Update about ongoing research about the Portland Thorns fanbase
http://sportsandideas.tumblr.com/post/149941488331/about-thorns-fandom-for-thorns-fans-research
Report on media coverage of women’s sports
http://www.fesmedia-africa.org/uploads/media/Changing_the_channel_Charlotte_Keuris_.pdf
Growing popularity of women’s sports stories in Australia
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-06-23/maasdorp-womens-sport-is-a-seriously-untapped-market/6566244
Fandom of women’s sports
http://wagesofwins.com/2015/07/13/more-on-how-to-make-womens-sports-leagues-grow-with-specific-attention-to-the-wnba/
Analysis of photo coverage of women athletes
http://web.uri.edu/iaics/files/06-Quin-Ma.pdf
Difference of media coverage between men’s and women’s sports
https://thinkprogress.org/sportscenters-shameful-coverage-of-women-s-sports-44f532355497#.nb10xuaue
Benefits for women participating in sports
http://www.feminist.org/research/sports/sports6.html
Myths and facts about women’s sports
http://www.feminist.org/research/sports/sports9.html
Media coverage: what makes women’s sports “boring”
http://www.sportsgrid.com/as-seen-on-tv/media/study-shows-that-media-coverage-actually-makes-womens-sports-seem-more-boring/
Women’s basketball in the Philippines
http://www.philstar.com/sports/2014/07/14/1346015/trouble-womens-basketball
Women’s basketball in the Philippines
http://www.rappler.com/sports/by-sport/basketball/53800-only-for-men-when-womens-hoops-ring-bell-ph
Women’s basketball in the Philippines
http://sports.abs-cbn.com/basketball/news/2016/06/22/meet-liga-filipina-amateur-league-women-women-12558
